Summary

After a decision has been drafted at the Board and the appellant believes the Board erred in its decision, the appellant has the option to appeal that decision with the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). CAVC then reviews the Board's decision. CAVC's review is based on the record before the agency and arguments of the parties, which are presented in written brief. CAVC does not review new evidence. When CAVC sends its findings back, this is known as a remand.

Caseflow allows entry/creation of CAVC remands only for AMA appeals. Legacy (non-AMA) appeals can also be remanded from CAVC and are supported, but they are not entered through Caseflow's UI.

When an AMA CAVC remand is processed in Caseflow with a decision reason of type Remand, Straight Reversal, or Death Dismissal, a new appeal stream off of the original is created with the type Court Remand. This appeal shares the same docket number as the original appeal. A CavcTask is immediately created to handle all CAVC-related tasks that need to be completed before the case can be sent to distribution. The new CAVC Remand is also entered into the CAVC Dashboard.

When an AMA CAVC remand is processed in Caseflow with a decision reason of type Dismissal Other than Death, Affirmed, or Settlement, an entry is created in the CAVC Dashboard for the original appeal stream.

Typically for CAVC Remands (i.e., JMR and JMPR subtypes), the first task that the CAVC Litigation Support team is the SendCavcRemandProcessedLetterTask. Once this letter has been sent to the veteran, the CAVC lit support team can mark this task complete, which puts the case on hold for 90 days while waiting for a response by opening a CavcRemandProcessedLetterResponseWindowTask. Once the veteran responds with how to proceed with the case, the CAVC Litigation Support team can send the case to appropriate branches or teams, grant an extension request, or send the case directly to distribution.

For an MDR subtype (i.e., CAVC has not returned the mandate to the Board yet), before the SendCavcRemandProcessedLetterTask is created, an MdrTask is initially created to place it on hold for 90 days until to wait for CAVC's mandate. Once the mandate and judgement dates are set, then a SendCavcRemandProcessedLetterTask is created and can continue as described above.

For decisions of type Straight Reversal and Death Dismissal, if the mandate (i.e., judgement and mandate dates) is provided, then the resulting appeal is ready for distribution to a VLJ -- no CAVC-related tasks are created. Otherwise, the appeal is put on hold (for 90 days) until the mandate is received.

CAVC Cases are considered to be high priority in caseflow. These cases are marks with red lettering in users' queues and case details and are treated as high priority when distributing cases to judges.

Supported CAVC Decision Types

1. Remand - When a case is remanded by CAVC, it means the VA has made errors in its decision that require the case to be sent back to the Board and corrected. There are a few types of remands detailed in the next section.
2. Straight Reversal - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to CAVC's mandate to reverse the Board's decision on the appeal.
3. Death Dismissal - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to death of the Veteran.
4. Dismissal, Other than death - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to a reason other than the death of a Veteran.
5. Affirmed - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to it being concluded, final, correct, or will stand.
6. Settlement - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to it being resolved or discussed further.

Supported Remand Subtypes

1. JMR (Joint Motion for Remand) - All of the decisions on the original appeal are being remanded
2. JMPR (Joint Motion Partial Remand) - Some of the decisions on the original appeal are being remanded
3. MDR (Memorandum Decision on Remand) - The appeal is being remanded, but the Court has not returned the mandate to the Board yet.

Future Work

1. Supporting subsequent extension requests

Organization

CAVC work is completed by users belonging to the CavcLitigationSupport team. There are two types of users for this organization: admins & non-admins.

Only admins can edit a CAVC Remand.

Steps to add a CAVC Remand on an appeal in Caseflow

1. Log in as a user within the CavcLitigationSupport Organization.
2. Click the "Search" link in the top right corner of the page next to the username.

3. Enter the docket number or Veteran ID into the search field for an appeal that has been dispatched and click search.
4. Click on the docker number to bring up the case details screen

5. Click the "Add CAVC Remand" button under the Post-dispatch actions label.

6. The Add CAVC Remand screen will appear and most of the questions should be filled in for you, the only things you must add are:

• A court docket number (must be in the format of 12-1XXX)
• Answer the question "Was the appellant represented by an attorney?" (Can be either answer)
• Select a Judge from the dropdown
• The Courts decision date (can be any date)
• Must enter text into the text box under the "Provide context and instructions for this action" label
• Click the "Submit" button.

7. After returning to the case details screen there will be an a success banner on the top of the screen and an CAVC label under the Appeal Stream Type to show that the case has been successfully placed in CAVC status.

Editing a CAVC Remand

1. Log in as a user within the CavcLitigationSupport Organization.
2. Go to the case details page of an appeal that has a CAVC remand and scroll down until you reach the CAVC Remand section.
3. Click on Edit Remand

4. Make any necessary changes and then press the Submit button.

5. You will be returned to the case details page with a success banner showing that the CAVC Remand has been updated.

Find/Create Seed Data of Cavc Remands

Cavc remands are created within three seperate seed files, including priority_distributions.rb, cavc_ama_appeals.rb, and static_test_data.rb

How to add CAVC Remands seeds in UAT

1. On your GFE, go to the UAT Environment and sign in as a CAVC User
2. Once in Caseflow, search for a dispatched case and click on the case
3. In the case details page, under "Post-Dispatch actions", click the "+Add CAVC Remand" button
4. Fill out the CAVC Remand form, then press submit
5. A banner will appear stating you've successfully created a CAVC Remand

How to add CAVC Remands seeds in Demo

1. Open a rails console (make c)

2. Run the following commands:

   1. RequestStore[:current_user] = User.system_user
   2. Dir[Rails.root.join("db/seeds/*.rb")].sort.each { |f| require f }
      • If error occurs, press Q to continue.

3. For the desired seed file, run the following command:

   1. Seeds::{Seed_File_Name}.new.seed!
      • Seeds::CavcAmaAppeals.new.seed!
      • Seeds::PriorityDistributions.new.seed!
      • Seeds::StaticTestData.new.seed!

How to find CAVC Remands in UAT

1. Log into Metabase through your GFE.

2. In the "Our Data" section, click on "Caseflow UAT".

3. In the container, click on the "public" container.

4. Once in public, scroll down and click "CAVC Remands" to see entire list of CAVC remands currently in UAT.

5. You can then go to the "Source Appeal ID" column and click on the desired Cavc Remand, then view details

6. In the details page, you can now see the veteran file number which you can then use to search for in UAT.

How to find CAVC Remands in Demo

1. In Caseflow Demo, sign in as a CAVC Lit. Support User

2. Go to Caseflow Queue, then switch views to CAVC team management page

3. Once in team management page, you will see all unassigned CAVC Remands cases under the unassigned tab